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Dollhouse — Episode 1.12 ‘Omega’

Dollhouse again (inexplicably, in my opinion) dropped to a series low in the Neilson ratings for this, the apparently final episode of the season. Yes, it still seems as if Episode 13, ‘Epitaph 1,’ will not be broadcast on either TV or Hulu; the only way to get it (legally) is on DVD, which you can actually pre-order now as a way of showing support for the series and giving the FOX execs a reason to consider bringing it back. Because at the moment it looks like it’s going to need all the help it can get.

Which is actually pretty strange. Sure, I’ll admit that the show got off to a bit of a rough start, but over the last six weeks it has gotten so good that people who had been there from the beginning are now enthralled by it, and even many critics who dismissed it at first have come around and are giving it praise. Despite this, as I said before, the ratings haven’t been great (although apparently the PVR and Hulu numbers overall are good, so maybe Neilson isn’t as important as it used to be), and so it was obviously imperative that this episode be stellar — go out with a bang and hope it’s enough to keep on banging next year.

How disappointing then that ‘Omega’ didn’t quite live up to the hype.

It wasn’t bad, it was just . . . normal. Actually, one word springs to mind — hokey. Yeah, overall it was just kinda hokey. And the biggest cause of that was Alpha. He went from being, all season, cunningly and viciously and intelligently dangerous to simply ‘former wannabe serial killer crazy dangerous;’ so, still dangerous, but not really as interesting. And the way that Echo kicked the shit out of him so easily doesn’t really help his cause for being a super Big Bad. And the way everything just fizzled out at the end, with them running around on the stairs and then suddenly he’s gone and, oh, everything’s back to normal . . . well, I guess there wasn’t much more they could do, owing to having to leave doors open for (a possible) next season, but in terms of this episode it made it all kinda dull.

Plus they keep going on about ‘Caroline, Caroline . . . save Caroline,’ but really, Composite Echo is a much stronger and more interesting character than Caroline — fuck Caroline, keep Composite Echo! But again, you can’t do stuff like this in a first season, though it shows us the many, many possibilities that exist for the show should it be renewed. Although I just realized . . . would Composite Echo really allow herself to be put back in the chair and wiped so easily? Something to ponder . . .

I will say that getting the back story was good — seeing that Alpha’s ‘composite event’ was actually caused by the chair and wasn’t random, even though Alpha did have his own problems before that anyway when he went after Whisky (I called that one, didn’t I? :) ). That stuff about Amy Acker being Whisky was a nice little surprise, though not overly surprising; I guess that’s another slight problem with the show — there have been so many ‘shocks’ already that now when one happens it’s just like ‘oh, he/she’s a Doll too, okay.’ But nothing to complain about too seriously over all.

Other stuff — it was obvious Ballard would come to work for the Dollhouse sooner rather than later; all that remains to be seen now is in what capacity. Echo’s handler would seem the most likely position. Alpha’s whole ‘we’re the Gods’ stuff is something else that added to the general uninteresting-ness of his motivations — just seems kinda done and lame and . . . hokey (there’s that word again); but, again, I think the show has shown more than enough in terms of overall quality to justify a second season, and if given a full 22 episode slate, I can’t wait to see what Joss, Jane, Tim et. al. would do with it.